


Faking Glory

by moonshhiine



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Identity Issues, Identity Porn, POV Second Person, Peter Nureyev's Aliases: Rex Glass | Duke Rose | Peter Ransom | Perseus Shah | Monsieur Dauphin, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel (Background), Season/Series 03 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:47:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25768408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonshhiine/pseuds/moonshhiine
Summary: If you try hard enough, there is an ache in the back of your skull and the silhouette of a tall, faceless man with vocal cords like guitar strings that make you want to press your fingers into his neck and play that song from that day in New Kinshasa, right before everything fell apart. A song you swore you’d heard before.There is the father that you only ever knew through stories, and there is the father who told them. And so, you’ve come to the conclusion that Peter Nureyev does not look like his father a long time ago.For a long time, Peter Nureyev does not look like anything.
Relationships: Buddy Aurinko & Vespa Ilkay & Peter Nureyev & Rita & Jet Sikuliaq & Juno Steel
Comments: 20
Kudos: 66





	Faking Glory

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This is my first fic for the Penumbra Podcast! I probably won't follow it up with anything for a while because university has totally been kicking my ass, I hope it's not the last though haha
> 
> This fic is completely different from what I had in mind when I first started it, but I'm actually quite happy with how it turned out. I've been experimenting with writing in second person and I just love the effect that it has on the psychic distance between the piece, the reader, and the pov character. I knew when I started messing around that I had to write a Nureyev fic in second person.
> 
> Enjoy :D

You are eleven years old.

Skin and bones and hunger. Nothing to your name but your name. Biting snow on your fingertips, knees on the concrete, and lasers bursting out of the floating city like shooting stars. You remember making a wish, once.

You are eleven years old when a thief finds you in an alleyway in the slums of Brahma with bruised knuckles, nimble fingers, and a blaster with the safety still on. The thief raises his arms over his head. He says _I know who you are_ and it’s all you've ever wanted to hear so you believe him.

 _My name is Peter,_ you say, finger on the trigger and pulse pressed against the barrel of the blaster. You have no idea how to use it, but he doesn’t have to know that. You tell yourself that you are not a bad person. You’re just hungry—always, always hungry. You don’t have much to lose and the only thing you have to give is _Peter Nureyev._

 _As I thought_ , he says, _you look just like your father._

You are hungry and he feeds you stories you cannot help but devour whole.

You trade in the blaster for a knife and he teaches you to be just like him.

The first rule of thieving: Preparation is everything. ~~A security camera is an obstacle, but it has one glaring weakness: it sees~~. Never let the larger picture distract from the current job. ~~One can do anything with unlimited access to a digital work schedule and a complete roster of employees~~. Flawless crime is dull. ~~The smaller your group, the better your chances~~. Time is the most important ingredient in any crime. Every second spent at the scene is another second in which you could get caught. ~~Save some future for later~~. **Save some future for later.**

You are sixteen years old when a thief takes you to the floating city and calls you his son. _I won’t draw a knife on my family_ , he tells you, his blood on your hands and his hand on your cheek. He taught you to be just like him. You want to be better.

♃

You do not look like your father.

You’ve never seen your father’s face, but you know this to be true. ~~You need this to be true.~~ If you try hard enough, there is an ache in the back of your skull and the silhouette of a tall, faceless man with vocal cords like guitar strings that make you want to press your fingers into his neck and play that song from that day on New Kinshasa, right before everything fell apart. A song you swore you’d heard before.

There is the father that you only ever knew through stories, and there is the father who told them. And so, you’ve come to the conclusion that Peter Nureyev does not look like his father a long time ago. The universe owes you that much, you think. If you look anything like your father, that’s one more thing that Mag was right about and that simply would not do.

In any case—

When trouble arises, disappear.

For a long time, Peter Nureyev does not look like anything.

Or, he tries not to.

You are sixteen years old. Alone. Skin and bones and hunger again.

Peter Nureyev should have pulled his last disappearing act on New Kinshasa—should have stayed gone after the fact—but he’s a slippery one. He lives in the interludes, breathes through the cracks of every façade you put forward. He lives when you wake up under a king-sized bed instead of on it, heart pounding against the carpeted floor; when you come to with a stomach suspiciously full of fat and cholesterol, crumbs on a nightgown made of Venusian silk; when you hold your breath and decide you will never let it go. (You always do.)

Nevertheless, you pull off each heist without complaint.

And then, Juno Steel.

Somewhere in Hyperion City, Peter Nureyev gets to breathe out in the open for the first time in over two decades and the lingering radiation in the atmosphere almost convinces you to stay.

♃

There is an unspoken rule among outlaws about being in the same place three times, but you have never needed it. You have only ever been anywhere once. (After all, you were not born on New Kinshasa.)

♃

Months later, Valles Vicky calls.

You find yourself in Juno Steel’s apartment and it’s exactly how you remember it: closet door slightly ajar, wind whistling through the bathroom window, and floorboards creaking with every step. Juno Steel haunts his apartment more than he lives in it.

It might be the only place in Hyperion City worth visiting twice.

Peter Nureyev steps aside to give way to someone else.

Juno Steel, for better and for worse, is Juno Steel no matter what alias you give him. 

There is a fake marriage certificate, a casino, and an assassination attempt. A getaway car. An unstoppable train. An ancient Martian tomb where Juno Steel finds out exactly who you are and what you’ve done. It would be so easy for you to disappear and yet—

There is an ancient Martian tomb. A self-destructive private investigator who locks himself in a room with an ancient Martian genocide weapon. A sharpshooter with one eye coming home from the hospital. A hotel room in Hyperion City with the most beautiful lady in the galaxy.

Then, there is nothing.

Duke Rose has been gone for a while and Peter Nureyev is alone.

♃

You file Juno Steel for a future so far away that you hope it never comes.

♃

With Miasma out of the picture, there is nothing left for you on Mars. You leave the city of First Light and feel a part of you dim as you go. Then, it’s business as usual for the nameless thief: a cursed necklace from old Earth stolen from an aristocrat on Titan, a mirror from the original Amber Room stolen from an exhibit on Dazhbog, a meteorite from one of Uranus’ inner moons stolen from a deranged Ganymedean countess collecting space rocks.

It’s when you stop by Callisto to steal the Quiver of Diana that you catch wind of the rumors. Word in the intragalactic criminal circuit is that Buddy Aurinko has been looking to form her own merry band of thieves, now fifteen years after the infamous Balder heist.

Just like that, you are sixteen again. Alone on the Outer Rim with a rusted knife and live news coverage of the women who revolutionized crime playing on the comms that Mag stole for you on your birthday— _not_ birthday—and you don’t know who you are but you think you know exactly who you want to be.

♃

Buddy Aurinko is wholly unimpressed the first time she sees you.

It’s a swift blow to your ego, but you take it in stride. You’re a professional—which means it only takes you half a second to recover from the white-hot panic that bursts in your veins when she tells you that she knows who you are. “Oh?” asks Peter Ransom. Like an old ghost walking into your house without bothering to knock because they think it’s still their house.

“Your reputation precedes you,” she says, “but if I recall, the nameless thief works alone." Half of her face is obscured by the volume of her hair, but the one eye that has been maintaining eye contact throughout the conversation sends shivers down your spine. (Then comes the awe that makes you want to drop to your knees because Buddy Aurinko _knows who you are_.)

You hum thoughtfully. “Is that going to be a problem?”

“I don’t know what you’ve heard about this job, but I’m not looking to form a ragtag team of thieves. If I wanted the best thieves in the galaxy, I would have them by now,” she says. You don’t doubt it. She gestures to the cup of tea you’ve been eyeing warily since she ordered it for you. “If you can’t get along with a team, then I have no use for you.”

You consider this, knowing full well what you have to do. The people who would vouch for the nameless thief are few and far in between, but even then, most of them have been nothing more than contacts on a set of burner comms. But, “There _is_ one...”

She arches an eyebrow.

“There’s a private eye in Hyperion City,” you tell her. Her eyes glint with recognition and the look on her face makes you want to throw your head back with a laugh. Juno Steel has that effect on people. You prop an elbow on the table as you cross one leg over the other. “How much have you heard about the Utgard Express heist?”

As the story progresses, you can’t quite tell who’s speaking anymore. You pray to every old Earth god you know that it’s not Peter Nureyev.

♃

You have never been the type to idolize the rich and famous, but you know crime better than the back of your hand. You were raised on the stories of criminal masterminds so forgive yourself if your hand trembles inside your pocket as it wraps around the keys of the RUBY7 and you stand in front of Jet Siquliak, the legend that stole the Iris of Jupiter with this very car.

“I have heard of you,” he tells you, a distinct timbre in his voice that makes your toes curl inside your shoes and reminds you that you are only human.

You clear your throat and plaster on a smile. “All bad things, I assume?”

“If that’s how you would like to put it, then yes,” Jet Siquliak, the Unnatural Disaster himself, says. Your life is not real. The universe has never been on your side, so why now? “Buddy has spoken… highly of you.”

“You flatter me, Jet Siquliak,” you say with a laugh.

He nods once before taking his leave and doesn’t even ask for your name.

♃

You meet Vespa Ilkay while she’s unarmed and all you can think about while her nails dig into your throat is _Buddy and Vespa, Vespa and Buddy, Buddy and Vespa, Vespa and Buddy_ , and the premiere you snuck into ten years ago of a low-budget, glamorized stream of their life of crime together. “My, my,” you say through your teeth, “what lovely nails you have. The color goes really well with my blood. Did you do them yourself?”

Buddy laughs at you from the entrance of their ship while Jet gets the first-aid kit ready.

♃

Juno Steel crashes back into your life gracefully choking on Martian sand and your traitorous heart stutters in your ribs as if he’d waltzed in saying _honey, I’m home_.

Predictably, the first heist with Juno is a disaster.

The blame is neither here nor there, but Nova Zolotovna’s jewelry weighs heavy in the inner linings of your suit and your stomach burns with shame the whole way back to the Carte Blanche.

Twenty years ago, Mag told you that he knew who you were and you didn’t believe him but you wanted to more than anything. Tonight, Buddy Aurinko tells you about a moral core that you couldn’t possibly have and the invisible trail that follows you wherever you go. Tonight, Buddy Aurinko calls you Peter. You may be a man of many names, but right now, you have taken the name of a boy who should have died on New Kinshasa, and the way she says it makes you want to tell her everything.

You are sixteen again, proclaiming, _I’ve hardly gotten started. I want to be big. The biggest. I want everyone to know who I am. I want the wealthy to fear me and those in need to call me._

Peter Ransom was a teenage revolutionary who put a knife through the only man he has ever called family and his ghost haunts you every day. Like a child peeking from behind the door, asking, _can I come out now?_ So you humor the boy and his place in this makeshift family as if either of you actually deserves one.

You are alone. _Do not forget this again—_

And then Juno Steel comes knocking on your door. The need to breathe swells inside of you. It doesn’t matter whether you’re six feet beneath the surface of Mars or in the middle of infinite space, Juno Steel is the only force in the universe strong enough to keep you from disappearing again.

The scars around his eye look different than you remember and this new Juno wears his heart on the same sleeve he wipes his tears on. It looks good on him.

There’s a lot you wanted to tell him that night.

You keep the future at arm’s length—look it in the eye and say, _wait for me_.

♃

Amidst all the uncertainty and distrust, Vespa Ilkay tends to your wounds with a sort of roughness that reminds you of sand and gravel and makes you wonder if it, too, turns to glass when it burns hot enough. Jet Siquliak tells you about the inner workings of the RUBY7 like that father from one of those old Earth streams the crew puts on after heists. Rita asks you to do her hair and pays for your service in anecdotes of her best friend.

Buddy calls it family. Juno calls it a waste of time and still he stays.

You don’t call it anything just yet.

What’s in a name?

Well, what’s in anything?

It’s taken a long time, but you know what Peter Nureyev looks like now, at least in disassembled pieces. The same cheekbones as Perseus Shah. The same nose as Rex Glass. The same smile for Juno Steel that Duke Rose has for Dahlia. The same goddamn thyroid condition that you have only ever admitted to having as Monsieur Dauphin.

When you put it all together, it still never feels whole.

♃

So, who are you, Peter Nureyev? And what does your future look like?

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feel free to comment and leave kudos :D
> 
> Oh, and the parts where Nureyev is referred to by his name instead of _you_ are totally intentional if that wasn't obvious? I could go on forever about why doing this with second person like this means everything to me, but I'll spare you the details.
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/mediocrewood).


End file.
